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There are already a lot of blogs on the web, millions I think. This one will be a place for me to jot down my opinions/thoughts/discoveries regarding a few topics of interest: large distributed computing systems, which often times are business information systems, and often, but not always, are internet-based systems. I'm interested in topics such as:

• database systems as programming environments and execution platforms: there is a lot of overlapping in functionality between what an OS does and what a DBMS does - journaling, page allocations, extent management, caching. Will these two converge, WinFS and SQL? I am really curious to see if at some point in the future DBMS will be just a standard service of the OS.
• as far as specific platforms, my interests cover the usual suspects, SQL Server, Sybase, Oracle, and more exotic offerings such as Intersystems Cache. Still trying to decide if MySQL is just a glorified Access!
  
• new generation web programming languages: especially those features that allow for distributed transactions and communication protocols
  
• clearly, we are seeing a differentiation of languages in those that support low level nuts and bolts systems programming (C/C++), and higher level languages that are used for interconnecting systems: C# 2.0, VB.NET, Java 5.0, ActionScript 3
• at an even higher level we are seeing presentation layer languages such as XAML and MXML... interesting Java begat C# and MXML begat XAML. Unless ideas spring independently in the noosphere!
  
• transaction processing systems and communication protocols: MTS, Tibco Rendezvous, Indigo... not sure if anyone uses DCOM/COM+ anymore? How about CORBA?
  

I am also interested in software development as a design endeavor. Not only in the sense of web/interaction design (although this is an interest of mine, too), but also in the sense where a software development is a reflexive activity. Somewhat philosophical, I know.